3 destroyers, 3 war stories

Navy and Marines name new ships for heroes, young and old

1 year old Isabella Garcia Peralta wears a Navy cap with the name of the new Navy ship that is being named after her war hero uncle Rafael Peralta. She is the daughter of Rafael's sister Karen Peralta.
— Charlie Neuman

1 year old Isabella Garcia Peralta wears a Navy cap with the name of the new Navy ship that is being named after her war hero uncle Rafael Peralta. She is the daughter of Rafael's sister Karen Peralta.
— Charlie Neuman

Now their stories, tales of desperate bravery, will be forged in steel.

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps held a ship-naming ceremony Friday to herald three future warships named for San Diego military heroes.

Metalworkers in Maine and Mississippi are shaping the hulls that will become the destroyers John Finn, Ralph Johnson and Rafael Peralta — names that span history from World War II to Vietnam to Iraq.

“These ships will be in our fleet for three or four or five decades. They will sail virtually every ocean in the world. Many times, the men and women on them will be the only Americans that people from other countries meet,” said Lt. Gen. John Toolan, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

“Today, we set the course for these ships with names worthy of the challenges and opportunities they and their crews will face.”

Loved ones stood next to pictures of the ships and proudly settled namesake ball caps on their heads. But the mood on the San Diego Naval Base waterfront was edged with sadness.

All three men are dead — two of them taken far, far too young.

Sgt. Rafael Peralta, an immigrant from Tijuana who attended San Diego’s Morse High School, was only 25 when he pulled a grenade under his body to save other Marines. It was November 2004, during some of the ugliest house-to-house fighting in Fallujah, Iraq.

Jumping on a grenade typically opens the door to a posthumous Medal of Honor, the highest American military award for combat valor. But Peralta’s case hit an unusual glitch.

The Pentagon declined to award the highest medal. A panel of experts said Peralta was too injured to make a conscious decision to smother the grenade.

His family was not alone in feeling the indignity. Then, in February 2012, the Navy announced that a ship would bear Peralta’s name.

Destroyers — one of the most formidable warships in the U.S. fleet — are named for war heroes. It was something.

(Published 09/18/2008, A-1) Rafael Peralta, a local Marine who died in Iraq

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(Published 09/18/2008, A-1) Rafael Peralta, a local Marine who died in Iraq

On Friday, Peralta’s mother, Rosa, and sisters, Icela and Karen, sat in the front row at the naming ceremony. With them, in crisp dress uniform, was Lance Cpl. Ricardo Peralta — Rafael’s younger brother, who enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2010 to honor his brother’s memory.

“I’m extremely proud to wear the same name tape,” said Ricardo Peralta, 23. “I’m just proud. It’s a little hard to talk. … Over time, he’s become less a brother figure and more an icon.”

But Ricardo remembers the old days. After their father died in 2001, Rafael was a tough-guy big brother. When Ricardo got in trouble at school, Rafael put him to work. He dragged the boy to the San Diego Marine boot camp for a military buzz cut.

Ships usually carry a motto that reflects the namesake. For example, the destroyer Michael Murphy, named for a Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan, bears the motto “lead the fight.”

The future USS Rafael Peralta doesn’t have one yet. Asked what they would suggest, the Peralta family conferred for a moment in Spanish on Friday. “Warrior,” Icela Peralta Donald said. “He talked about being an Aztec Warrior,” Ricardo Peralta said.

No one from Ralph Johnson’s family attended the ceremony Friday. A sister, Helen Richards, was kept away by an emergency. So it was left to Georgeann McRaven — the ship’s sponsor, the wife of an admiral — to tell Johnson’s story.

“He was so brave, and he was so young at the same time. He was only 19 and he’d only been in Vietnam a couple months,” said McRaven, whose husband is Adm. Bill McRaven, head of U.S. Special Operations Command.

Marine Private First Class Ralph Henry Johnson was a young black man from South Carolina who enlisted in the summer of 1967. By January 1968, he was in Vietnam.

He stopped in San Diego along the way for boot camp and combat training at Camp Pendleton.

A reconnaissance scout, he and his patrol were behind enemy lines overlooking the Quan Duc Valley on March 5, 1968. A larger force attacked, using automatic weapons, satchel charges and grenades.

One grenade landed in Johnson’s three-man fighting hole. According to his Medal of Honor citation, Johnson shouted a warning and threw himself on the explosive.

“His prompt and heroic act saved the life of one Marine at the cost of his life and undoubtedly prevented the enemy from penetrating his sector of the patrol’s perimeter,” the citation says.

Johnson was so young to make that sacrifice. Toolan said it’s possible that the Marine didn’t know much about what he was fighting for in 1968. Today, the picture looks different to the three-star Marine general.

“It took a little while — 40, 50 years — but countries like Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, all these economic giants in Southeast Asia, they never could’ve been where they are today if United States didn’t stand in the gap for 10 years to keep communism at bay,” Toolan said.

“I just hope the families that have service in the Vietnam War understand that success is evident today.”

South Carolina remembers Johnson. His hometown of Charleston is the location of the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center.

No one has forgotten John William Finn — certainly not other Pearl Harbor survivors and certainly not San Diego County, where he settled after the Navy. Living to 100 years old, the former sailor was a giant in local and national veterans groups.

A tough-as-nails chief petty officer, Finn was on base in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, when the Japanese aircraft began strafing on Dec. 7, 1941. Finn hauled a big .50-caliber mounted machinegun into the open and fired.

“Although painfully wounded many times, he continued to man this gun and to return the enemy’s fire vigorously and with telling effect throughout the enemy strafing and bombing attacks and with complete disregard for his own personal safety,” according to his Medal of Honor citation.

Promoted into the officer ranks, Finn served until retirement and then moved to a 90-acre ranch in East County. Finn’s son, Joseph, attended Friday’s ceremony.

His father would have regarded the ship-naming ceremony and all the hoopla as more than what’s necessary, Joseph Finn said.

“My father,” he said, “always thought there were other people who deserved it, or who gave more.”